Summer Is Here!

Over the course of this week, we all enjoyed our last day of school and are ready for the summer fun to begin.  Fun can't exist without a night out on the town while the kids are at home with a babysitter.  Last night was a great evening filled with friends and fun.  The evening began with wine tasting, and ended with the movie Hangover.  It was great to relax, laugh and help Lee and Poppy celebrate their ninth anniversary. Cheers to happy marriages and great friends!

Group shot at Buffalo Wild Wings

Happy Anniversary Lee and Poppy!  The great artwork that was the gift.  May you be together as long as Arturo and Madge...

Dave even found a possible spokesperson gig...

Poppy picking out Lee's anniversary gift, hope he likes it!

Cheers!

Tis the Season

The last few months have gone by and whirlwind speed and now that the holidays are here that will be the case even more.  During Thanksgiving break, we crammed as much into one week as possible.  An Iowa Game, the Thanksgiving meal, decorating for Christmas and the Nutcracker Tea.  It's certainly a busy time of year but like most people, one of my favorite times of year

Halloween Fun

Its so great when Halloween falls on a Friday--you can have so much more fun knowing that you don' t have to work or get kids ready for school the next day.  Since our house is now FINISHED we combined the trick or treating festivities with our first dinner party.  Everyone is probably so sick of hearing me say how grateful I am of the friends I have met because of my fitness team. But I am SO GRATEFUL of the friends I have met.  As a child, I remember how much fun my parents would have with their friends who had kids our age.  Now I finally feel like I have that!  The kids had a great time and so did the adults.  Bella and Cooper were sick of having photos taken, so they don't exactly look like they were having fun---but in this case, the photos don't sum up how they were feeling.  It was wonderful and we are all glad we have today to recover!

Birthday Surprises

Those of you that are near in age to me, will agree that birthdays seem to lose their excitement after the age of about 25.  Don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful pre-birthday weekend celebrating in Vegas, but yesterday, the actual day, left a bit to be desired.  It was one of those extremely hectic and stressful days at work and that kind of puts a damper on the whole idea of "happy" birthday.  Last night I came to two realizations. One, stressful birthdays like this, as an adult, are the reason why we need to make our kid's birthdays so fun!  Stock up on the fun while you can.  Two, the smallest thing can make your day better.  I got home from the work day from hell and had an e-mail from a dear friend that I haven't heard from in a long time (that goes both ways, this blog is pretty much my only form of communication).  Kim, it meant so much to hear from you,and it brightened my day.  After dinner, I went to work out and when I got out to my car there was a card on the windshield from Dave and the kids, that too made me feel loved.  Thanks to all of you who sent warm wishes. 

Just Beachy...

Summer is quickly drawing to a close, for Cooper it already has and for Dave and I, the first school bell is about to ring.  I can't think of a better way to end our months of easy living than with a trip to the beach.  Our friends are using a time share in Carlsbad all week and suggested we come down for Saturday evening and all day Sunday.  We said, "Perfect".  That's their last name, so it was a pretty sad attempt at a joke and one I'm sure they have heard too many times.  We arrived in time for a walk on the beach on Saturday and told all four kids, "You can put your feet in, but don't get your clothes wet"  Yeah, sure, that really worked, they were all drenched from head to toe in the matter of about three minutes.  Our clothes were back at our hotel, Bella was able to borrow clothes from Brooke, but Cooper was a bit more problematic.  He ended up dressed in clothes that looked more like pajamas than clothes, but oh well, it's the beach.  Sunday we spent almost seven hours at the beach.  That amounted in slight sunburns, a lot of sandcastles, a lot of time to boogie board and two exhausted children when we drove home.  In other words, it was "perfect".